Friday, August 26, 2011

Hey Rick, What Are You Comparing Gay Marriage To This Week?

Rick Santorum thus far has compared gay marriage to water and beer, napkins and paper towels, and now says in an interview with the Iowa Independent that gays can't get married because a tree is not a car. Or something.

Because it changes the definition of an intrinsic element of society in a way that minimizes what that bond means to society.

Marriage is what marriage is. Marriage was around before government said what it was.
It’s like going out and saying, ‘That tree is a car.’ Well, the tree’s not a car. A tree’s a tree.

Marriage is marriage.

You can say that tree is something other than it is. It can redefine it. But it doesn’t change the essential nature of what marriage is.

So which is this? A beer? Or a tree? Or a paper towel?! Hmmmm...

Marriage is a union between a man and a woman for the purposes of the benefit of both the man and the woman, a natural unitive according to nature, unitive, that is for the purposes of having and rearing children and for the benefit of both the man and the woman involved in that relationship.

His arguments are getting even more nonsensical and only seems to highlight how irrelevant he actually is. His entire argument, of course, is that same-sex marriage will lead to a slew of social disasters such as interspecies nuptials:

And for the benefit of society because we need to have stable families of men and woman bonded together to raise children. That’s what marriage is. You can say two people who love each other is marriage. But then why limit it to just two people? Why not three people? Why not 10 people?

If it’s just about love and everybody needs to be treated equally, then why not 10? Why not allowing nieces and aunts to marry? Why not? If marriage means anyone who is in love, well, then, let everybody who is in love get married. But it’s not what marriage is.

Yawn. That old thing? That argument is about as old as I am. No, Rick, I don't think the advent of marriage equality will lead to the FLDS suddenly being in the clear for polygamy.

His finishes off, of course, with stating that his position is an attempt to preserve the religious right's ability to discriminate against people they judge to be sinful:

Anybody who does not recognize what the state says is good and right is a bigot. We don’t give licenses for adoptions to organizations that won’t do gay adoptions because they’re bigots. And a lot of those are faith-based organizations.

Will we go into pulpits and tell preachers they can’t preach that gay marriage is wrong? Well maybe not right away but maybe tax-exempt status is next.

There’s a conflict here because we’ve created something that is not what it is.

Rick Santorum is, by this time, the laughingstock of the GOP in his insistence on running for President. He can't raise money and is a shoe-in for "worst GOP candidate for 2012." Basically the only thing he's getting for his pains is yet another Google bomb from Dan Savage.